Crafting a Violin vs a Guitar

The techniques for crafting a violin and a guitar are similar.

The top piece of a violin has a circular resonance hole.

Antonio Stradivari was a French virtuoso violinist.

Pierre Amoyal purchased a famous Stradivarius when he was an old man.

Luthier starts with a single rectangular slab of wood to craft a violin.

The top piece of a violin is made from maple wood.

The fingerboard is also known as the handle.

The back of a violin is concave on the inside and convex on the outside.

Antonio Stradivari was from the Italian region of Tuscany.

The varnish of a violin is not crucial to its quality.

Although violins and guitars share similarities, their crafting techniques are completely different.
Guitar bodies are made of flat pieces of wood, whereas violins have convex tops and bottoms.

A luthier starts with two rectangular slabs of wood (spruce for the top, maple for the bottom).
The slabs are cut into the violin profile, then hand-carved to create concave inner and convex outer surfaces.
The top piece has two f-shaped resonance holes, and precision carving is crucial for a violin's quality.

The greatest violin maker, Antonio Stradivari, possessed a secret varnish recipe that died with him.
Stradivarius was from Cremona, Lombardy, Italy, and his violins are renowned for their exceptional quality.

Pierre Amoyal, a French-Swiss virtuoso violinist, owned a stolen Stradivarius, previously owned by Tsar Nicholas II.
The violin was stolen in 1987, along with Amoyal's Porsche, and a ransom of £1.5 million was demanded.
The instrument was recovered four years later, amid rival gang conflicts and a murder.